


Crutch

by AlessNox



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Crime, Episode: s01e01 A Study in Pink, Episode: s01e02 The Blind Banker, Episode: s01e03 The Great Game, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Loneliness, POV Alternating, Retelling, Vignette, bamf!MrsHudson, season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:46:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlessNox/pseuds/AlessNox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Retired Captain John Watson comes back from Afghanistan and meets an amazing man named Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock was always a loner, until now. A retelling of the events around A study in Pink and so on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Invalid

Brown, like a leather belt.

Brown, like the top of his army boots, the dingy carpet of the room that Captain John Watson has been assigned to live in here in London. A transitional place for returning soldiers to give them time to adjust before finding occupation and accommodations of their own.

The room is littered with the marks of the dozens of other occupants before him who stared at the same boring walls, lay on the same hard bed. A room designed to be practical more than welcoming. Not the kind of place for a person to stay long. Not a place to spend any sort of time in. But this is where he has spent the majority of his days since his return, preferring to be alone with his thoughts rather than spending his time out there in the place that his therapist calls 'the real world'.

Nothing here feels real. It's all muted, sheltered. It's like returning a five year old to a playpen. Things that once seemed so important are revealed to be simply toys, a doll with a painted on face. That's what the real world seems like to John after life and death in Afghanistan.

Down the hall is a lounge with a television and a ping pong table. There is a notice board where vacancies for flats are posted as well as job listings. A place to socialize, to interact with others. A place to help one get on with one's life. But how can he make a life in this playpen of a world? What good are his skills in this land of shops and cinema? John left his life behind him in Afghanistan. Sitting on the edge of the bed staring down at the brown carpet he wonders if there is anything left of the man that he once was.

He feels a sharp pain in his leg as he rises to his feet. He staggers across the room reaching for his cane. It should be his shoulder that hurts, not his leg. There is nothing wrong with his leg. He's seen the X-rays and there's nothing there, but his leg refuses to believe him. The pain shoots up the nerves making him wince, so he takes a seat at the battered brown desk and pokes at his left shoulder in the place where the bullet hit him, the place where it tore into his flesh leaving him without pain only a vague pressure and a nasty scar. The skin is pinched around the site. He should stretch it. That's what they told him. Exercise it and it will be back to normal.

Normal. What a joke. Nothing about this is normal. Normal is sitting in the base hospital looking at files and yelling over the phone about shipments that were delayed for the third time. Normal is rushing out to do triage on soldiers ambushed on their way back from a remote outpost.

He touches the wound remembering the warmth of his blood rushing down his side. How he had thrust his hand into the pressure point reducing the flow, but was still able to feel the cold overcoming him, knowing that if he passed out and released the pressure that he would most likely bleed to death before anyone could get around to help him. It was a close thing. They pulled the bullet out of him, saving his life at the price of only a few nerves. He had lost some feeling to part of his chest and part of his arm. He felt no pain there, but now his hand shook whenever he tried to pick up a scalpel, and his leg screamed at him when he tried to move forward.

John sat in the chair at the tatty desk and glanced at his computer. In Afghanistan, no amount of begging or requisitioning had been able to get him one. When he returned, he only had to walk into a shop and pass over a good part of his pension check, and it was his. Now, he didn't know what to do with it. He didn't know what to do with anything here.

He had known what to do when he had heard the call that Barrows had been injured by a mine. He had taken the truck out immediately finding him almost dead of blood loss. They had thought it too dangerous to move him far, and John had operated on him there in a trench with a makeshift tent overhead to keep out the dust. It was an impossible operation. The iliac vein was hit and the blood had been incredibly difficult to stop, but he had stitched him up, and saved his leg in an operation that would have had his instructors at Barts cheering. But it had all been wasted.

They had loaded him into the truck and headed back only to blunder into an offensive that kept them holed up for days in the back of an abandoned house as Barrows slowly slipped away. John could imagine how he must have felt, to have been given hope only to lose it again. The pain flared up, and he frowned slapping his leg in the hopes that the pain that they said was only in his head would go away, but it didn't. He was broken. Useless as a soldier. Useless as a doctor. Simply useless.

He pulled the eviction letter out of the desk drawer and read it. Less than a week and he would have to go.

"Well John, better do something about it," he said to the empty room before rising to his feet and trudging out into the busy world of modern London, expecting nothing, but resolved to find something anyhow.


	2. Meeting

_Paint flecks, definitely paint._  
 _Green._  
 _Must have been a ladder._  
 _No other way into that window._

Sherlock Holmes looks through the microscope in the laboratory at St. Bartholomew's hospital.

_No vines or railings, no trees._  
 _He used a ladder to climb into her window and murdered her._  
 _Elementary really._  
 _Of course, the door was locked._  
 _Must text Gregson._  
 _There's no signal._  
 _The protein test should be ready now._

Sherlock walks over to the light table. He doesn't really need the light table. A white sheet would do as well, but Sherlock likes the light table. It makes the colors sharper. He pipettes the sample into the petri dish noting that there is no change.

_Negative for proteins then._

He glances up as Mike Stanford enters the room.

_Damp lines, grass marks, on his shoe says he's been in the park._  
 _Stain on his horrendously bright tie says coffee._  
 _Takes it with milk._  
 _Has he found me a flatmate already?_

He looks down.

_A longer time will make a more conclusive test._  
 _I'll mix the sample and leave it overnight._

He picks up the samples and swirls them.

_Ah, the flatmate!_  
 _Military haircut._  
 _Limp._  
 _Wounded in action?_  
 _If he needs a flat, then he has probably only recently returned from...where?_

"Bit different from my day," John Watson says.

"You have no idea," Mike replies.

_Clipped phrases._  
 _Used to giving commands, but makes casual small talk references._  
 _Trained at Barts, then._  
 _He's an army doctor._  
 _Army doctors don't serve on the front lines._  
 _How did he get wounded, I wonder?_  
 _Ah yes, the ladder._

"Mike can I borrow your phone?" Sherlock says, "There's no signal on mine."

"And what's wrong with the land line?" Mike replies.

"Oh I prefer to text."

_Less time spent on tedious smalltalk._

"Sorry, it's in my coat," Mike says.

_Disappointing, maybe Molly has a phone._

"Uh here, use mine," the other man says. Sherlock looks up.

_Generous gesture. He seems nice enough._

"Oh, thank you," Sherlock replies.

"This is an old friend of mine, John Watson," Mike says.

Sherlock walks toward the man, his heels clicking on the linoleum floor. He buttons his jacket. _First impressions are important._

_Age mid-thirties._  
 _Military bearing, jacket with epaulets. Yes, he's Army._

Reaching out, John passes his phone to Sherlock.

_Scuffs on the power connection._  
 _An alcoholic's phone._  
 _Not his then._

_He has a bad leg._  
 _Why doesn't he sit?_  
 _Stamford is sitting... Obesity._  
 _Wait..._  
 _It's psychosomatic._  
 _Interesting._

_Wartime trauma?_  
 _Afghanistan or Iraq?_  
 _The only two choices with that tan._

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" Sherlock asks while opening the expensive phone that John obviously didn't buy.

_Harry Watson from Clara, three kisses_  
 _His brother's marriage must be on the rocks._

Mike Stamford gives a wide smile. John Watson tilts his head, obviously puzzled.  
"Sorry?" John asks.

_Message sent._  
 _Now Gregson can arrest the brother._  
 _Another criminal bagged._  
 _He's puzzled, oh ...my question._

"Which was it, Afghanistan or Iraq?"

Sherlock can see Molly through the door window. John tilts forward against his cane. "Afghanistan, how did you know?" He says shuffling his feet nervously.

_Definitely psychosomatic._  
 _He must drive his therapist crazy._

"Ah Molly, Coffee, thank you," Sherlock says as she comes in. She hands it to him. "What happened to the lipstick?" he says.

"It wasn't working for me," Molly says with a smile.

"Really, I thought it was a big improvement, your mouth's ...too small now."

_Caffeine, good, not too hot._

"Okay," Molly says sheepishly before leaving the room as Sherlock walks back over to his bench. He places the coffee on the table.

"How do you feel about the violin?" Sherlock asks.

_Slow to answer._  
 _He thinks before he speaks._  
 _Very self contained._  
 _Steady with just enough problems to be interesting._

"I'm sorry what?" John says.

_A bit slow on the uptake, but generally genial._  
 _I think I'll take him._

"I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Will that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other," Sherlock said with a tacked on smile.

John's eyes shifted from Sherlock's to Mike's. "You told him about me," John says.

"Not a word," Mike replies shaking his head.

"Then who said anything about flatmates?" he said, an edge of anger in his voice.

_Stubborn with a bit of a temper._  
 _I like him already._

"I did," Sherlock said putting on his coat, "I said that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for ... now here he is just after lunch with an old friend clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. It wasn't a difficult leap."

"How did you know about Afghanistan?"

"I've got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together we ought to be able to afford it. We'll meet there tomorrow evening at seven o'clock. Sorry got to dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary." Sherlock walked past John Watson and toward the door.

"Is that it? "John questions. Sherlock steps back around to face him.

"Is that what?" Sherlock asks looking closely at the hard line of John's chin.

_He isn't convinced._  
 _Why not? This is perfect._

"We've only just met and we're going to go look at a flat," he says stating the obvious. Sherlock glances from John to Stamford who is smiling.

"Problem?" he says.

John gave an odd un-grin and looked aside. "We don't know a thing about each other. I don't know where we're meeting, I don't even know your name."

_Stubborn._  
 _He wants me to convince him._  
 _If I don't tell him how I know, he'll follow me to the ends of the Earth just to ask._

Sherlock gazed hard at John ordering the facts in his head. "I know you're an army doctor and that you've been invalided home from Afghanistan and that you've got a brother who's worried about you but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him possibly because he's an alcoholic more likely because he just walked out on his wife. And I know your therapist thinks your limp is just psychosomatic quite correctly I'm afraid. That's enough to be going on with don't you think?"

Sherlock opens the door just as the last of John's sentence registers in his head.  
"The name's Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker street," he says clicking his tongue at John and winking.

_Yes, he'll do very nicely._  
 _Must tell Mrs Hudson to take the flat off the market._  
 _She was tempted by that pregnant couple._  
 _Ghastly tenants they'd make with her snoring and his infidelity._

He takes the stairs two at a time smiling all the way.


	3. Observations

Sherlock Holmes is not a man who is patient with idiots. Luckily, I am not an idiot. Except, perhaps in comparison to Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock is a genius, an actual genius. He could have been the top Inspector at Scotland Yard if it wasn't for his manners, or should I say his lack of them. Genius is one thing. Politics is another, and in most organizations getting along with your peers and bosses becomes more important than intelligence, sad, but true.

I bounded up the stairs into his apartment to find him standing by the window waiting for me. Of course, he knew why I had come. "Where?" he asked.

"Brixton, Lauriston Gardens," I replied.

"What's new about this one, you wouldn't have come to get me if there wasn't something different."

"You know how they never leave notes?" I said.

"Yeah."

"Well this one did."

He breathed in like a hound on the scent, and I knew then that I had him, but I had to ask anyway. "Will you come?"

"Who's on forensics?" he asked.

"Anderson."

He looked away. The animosity between Sherlock and Anderson was deep and longstanding.

"Anderson won't work with me," he said.

"Well he won't be your assistant," I replied.

"I need an assistant."

"Will you come?" I repeated.

"Not in a police car, I'll be right behind," he said rocking his body in that way that he only did when he was really pleased. I was relieved. He doesn't always grace us with his presence.

"Thank You," I said bowing. It was a bit of a dramatic gesture, but I find that Sherlock responds best to dramatic gestures, and if stroking his ego will help put a criminal behind bars, then that's what I'll do. Politics is, thankfully, something that I understand.

It was only then that I noticed the other people in the room. I had apparently interrupted some kind of meeting or interview. There was the landlady and a man sitting in a chair. His landlady, Mrs Hudson, I knew from when he lived in the downstairs flat. The other man...I'd never seen him before.

I turned and left for the crime scene. Anderson and Donovan were there before me. Anderson came over to me as I entered. "You didn't ask HIM did you?" he said.

"And if I did?"

"We don't need him. We can solve it without him."

"We had three chances to solve it without him. If he can give us even one solid lead it will be worth it."

"But ..." Anderson began, but I cut him off.

"I won't have anyone else die simply because we were too proud to ask for help."

"Begging for help is more like it," Anderson muttered under his breath.

"Did you have something that you wanted to say, Anderson?" I asked him with steel in my voice.

He shook his head. "Well then, until you have something worthwhile to add to the case, then I suggest you keep your mouth closed. He's coming, and I'll have no interference from you... or Donovan for that matter. You tell her that."

Anderson sulked off, and I went up the stairs to look at the body. She was youngish and pretty. What a waste. "Get some lights up here!" I called out. "We're gonna need cameras, and check out the other rooms. Let's be thorough ...this time."

I walked slowly back down the stairs. Bloody lot of stairs in this building. I was dressing when he showed up. The odd thing was, that he didn't show up alone. The man from the apartment was with him.

"Who's this?" I asked.

"He's with me," Sherlock said. I stared at the short man with the cane and wondered what sort of animal he must be. I had known Sherlock Holmes for five years. Five years of back alleys, murders, thefts. I've seen him depressed and ecstatic. I've seen him high as a kite on cocaine. I've seen him almost flirt with Donovan. I'd even seen him get hit in the face with a purse by an old woman who turned out to be a jewel thief in drag. But the one thing that I had never seen him do, was bring someone with him on a case. Never. Not once.

Sherlock Holmes doesn't do friends. I know this from first hand experience. From five years of trying to connect emotionally with a man who seems unable to understand the concept of _'friend'_ except as it applies to motive. It was, perhaps, too early to be applying such a word to this man, but it was obvious that Sherlock valued his opinion, and that alone was a mind shattering concept.

We entered the room and I stood aside to let Sherlock do his work. As I said, Sherlock is a man who loves dramatic gestures. He reached out one gloved hand as if absorbing information through his palm and stared at her for a full thirty seconds. "Shut up," he said to me though I was perfectly quiet.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking. It was annoying," he said before walking slowing into the room and fluttering around her like a bee. No matter how many times I see it, I'm still mesmerized by his technique. The way he can look at the angle of a pen or the turn of a coat and know so much. God, I wish I had brains to do that, or maybe it's just having the guts to make wild guesses and stick by them.

He turned to me, insulted Anderson, and began rattling off information about how long she'd been married and where she came from. All this was normal, I'd seen it a hundred times. What I had never seen before was Sherlock Holmes asking, not demanding, but asking someone else for their opinion.

"Doctor Watson, what do you think?" he asked respectfully of the man with the cane.

"Of the message?" Dr. Watson said.

"Of the body, you're a medical man."

"We have a whole team right outside," I reminded him.

"They won't work with me," he objected.

"I'm breaking every rule letting YOU in here," I said.

He interrupted me saying, "Yes, because you need me."

I wanted to deny him, but God knows he's right. I wouldn't have called him in if I had thought that we could solve the case alone. "Yes I do, God help me," I said.

"Doctor Watson," he called.

The man was hesitant, so I told him, "Do what you want, help yourself," and left them to ... whatever.

I left the room and called out "Anderson, keep everyone out for a few minutes." Anderson was livid. He stood next to me and whispered, "We already have one psychopath messing up our crime scene, are we going to let him bring others along too?"

"He said he's a doctor. Maybe if you weren't so hostile to him, he wouldn't feel the need to bring an outside assistant."

I walked back into the room to see the doctor examining the body. Seemed genuine enough. Sherlock was staring at him. Waiting for him. Talking to him. I crossed my arms waiting for the verdict.

He rattled off his facts including details about the woman's sex life that had me accusing him of making the whole thing up. The Doctor was impressed. He blurted out compliments which Sherlock ate up like the diva that he was. So was that what he had brought the man for? To boost his ego? No matter. What was of interest to me was how he kept going on about her suitcase when she obviously had none. He pointed out dirt on her leg, as if that proved everything, and then he told me that all of the deaths were murder and that we had a serial killer on our hands. Great!

He said that she must have left her case in the killer's car, and then cried out one of those infuriating exclamations which meant, _'I've just solved the whole thing, but I'm not going to tell you the answer'_. The kind that make me want to punch him. He said that the killer had made a mistake.

"What mistake?" I asked.

But instead of answering me. Instead of explaining a tiny bit of his thought processes to me, all he did was yell the word, "Pink!" and run off.

I stood there open-mouthed. I had no idea what was going through his head, but he had given me the leads I needed, and I knew where he would be. Obviously he was going to look for the case, so I put that out of my mind and went to finish up on the body.

Back at Scotland Yard, I called the team together and asked for volunteers to search Sherlock's apartment for drugs. I didn't expect to find any. Sherlock had been clean for a year and a half, and as far as I know, he hadn't taken anything since the overdose, but it would be enough to pressure him into giving up the evidence that I knew that he must have found by now.

Sherlock was my trump card, but he was not a team player. He was rude, and insensitive, and he had to be coerced into sharing. A surprising number of people volunteered to search Sherlock's apartment. Well, now that I think of it, it wasn't really that surprising.

We found the bag immediately. A pink case with her name on it sitting in the middle of the living room, but Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. I had the team search the flat for anything else that they could find.

There were a number of disgusting body parts in the kitchen, and Sherlock's design sense always did lean toward the morbid, skulls and dead animals being a recurring motif. The strangest thing was when they told me that this was a two bedroom flat. Did Sherlock Holmes have a flatmate? Who would live with Sherlock Holmes?

I was just mulling that over when I heard the door open downstairs. I sat down and crossed my legs ready to confront Sherlock. I guess, I'm not immune to the dramatic gesture myself. I told the team to quiet down, best to surprise them and was surprised myself by the sound of laughter filtering up through the stairwell. Sherlock Holmes was laughing. Donovan met my eyes with shock of her own.

Sherlock was angry when I told him that we were here on a drugs bust. The other man, Watson, was amused. "This man...seriously?" he asked in disbelief until Sherlock stared him down telling me that if we looked hard enough that there were drugs in the flat. I'd have to be careful not to let the gang look too hard then. We only wanted to pressure him, not to arrest him.

Sherlock paced around nervously. "Sherlock, this is our case," I told him, "I'm letting you in, but you do not go off on your own, clear?"

"Or what, you set up a pretend drugs bust to bully me?"

"It stops being pretend if they find anything."

When he seemed sufficiently cowed I gave him some of the information that we had found and stood back to watch him work. I always find his deductions interesting to watch, but I must say that I was distracted this time by the presence of his flatmate, Dr. Watson.

Anderson and Sherlock threw their usual insults at each other, but when Sherlock showed what an insensitive clod he was by asking why a dying woman would think of their daughter in her last moments, he turned toward Watson to ask his opinion...again.

He said, "not good?"

"Bit not good, yeah," Watson replied.

"But if you were dying ...if you'd been murdered in your very last few seconds, what would you say?"

"Please God, let me live," Watson said.

"Use your imagination," Sherlock said.

And the doctor replied, "I don't have to," which shut Sherlock up for a good three seconds. For Sherlock, that's a long time.

I watched John Watson wondering what made him different from every other person in the world. What was it that made him able to get Sherlock to listen to him, to ask his advice when in five years he had never once asked for mine?

But then my eyes were drawn back to Sherlock. Maybe it was the presence of an audience that had buoyed him up, but I could see that he was approaching another revelation. I told the group to quiet down as I waited for it. It spilled out accompanied by a host of insults to our intelligence that I had luckily learned to ignore. The only difference was the presence of Watson who asked him questions and assisted him. He didn't seem to be put off by Sherlock which was, in my experience, frankly amazing.

Sherlock told us that the phone was planted on the killer, but the GPS said it was in this flat. It wasn't until later that we found out that the killer was in the flat with us. I had my entire crew with me, and the killer was right there. We could have caught him then with no harm to anyone, but what happened next was so typical of him. Sherlock left the flat with the killer without saying a word to any of us.

For someone blessed with more brainpower than half of Scotland Yard combined, Sherlock Holmes can be remarkably stupid sometimes. A dozen officers within an arms reach and he sneaks off to try to capture the killer alone. I kick myself whenever I think of it. Well, to tell the truth, I want to kick him.

I stood in that flat after Sherlock had gone and asked, "Why did he do that, why did he have to leave?"

"You know him better than I do," John Watson said.

I stared. "I've known him for five years," I said, "and no, I don't."

At the time, when we noticed that he had driven off in a cab, I assumed it was just another one of Sherlock's dramatic stunts. I didn't know that the killer had taken him. It was Watson who called us, after Donovan had stormed out in a huff, after we had headed back to the office. He said that the killer was on the move, and that Sherlock was probably with him.

Later, after we pulled up to that college and found Sherlock standing over a dead body, poison pills scattered on the floor, I found out what was different about Dr. John Watson. I didn't discover it at once. It was only after Sherlock told me about the person who shot the cabbie. About how he was a fighter, a military man, his voice trailing off as he looked at his flatmate with awe.

Now, I am not an idiot. I know that one plus one equals two, and I now know that the thing that makes John Watson special, is his trust in Sherlock Holmes. He believes in him so completely that he was willing to kill to keep him safe.

The evidence in the cabbie's flat, not to mention his log, was enough to convict him posthumously so no one seemed to notice when the bullet from the hand gun that killed him went missing. It may seem a bit dishonest, but in the long run it is better for everyone, because Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and with John Watson's help, he has a chance of becoming a good one.


	4. Homecoming

"Well I have to say, you were right about the Chinese. That was the best Moo Shoo Pork that I've ever had," John said as the taxi drove away behind them.

Sherlock grinned. He opened the door to 221B and entered, taking the steps two at a time with John right behind him, all of his things packed compactly into the green bag slung over his shoulder. As he passed through the door into the flat Sherlock sighed.

"What a mess they've made of my things," he said walking into the kitchen. "These experiments are ruined! I must bill Lestrade for this."

"Bill him?" John asked, "but ...I didn't think that you got paid for investigating."

"I don't, but if he's going to destroy my flat, the least he can do is pay for a cleaning service to straighten up."

"You're going to hire a cleaner?"

"No of course not, Mrs Hudson will do it, but Lestrade needs to know that he can't just march into my flat, turning over everything to find evidence. It's not like I tried to hide it. I left the case out in the open this time. That drugs bust was a bit heavy-handed. Clever though, I have to give him that."

"Do you and Detective Inspector Lestrade fight often?"

"Oh no, he's fine," Sherlock said discounting the thought with a wave of his hand, "but you, Doctor Watson, how did you enjoy our first case together?" Sherlock turned toward John staring down into his eyes, a smirk on the edge of his lips that he tried to hide, but couldn't.

"Case?" John asked. He stood very straight. "So this kind of thing happens to you often then. This is what you do every day."

"Pretty much, did you like it?"

John pursed his lip and tilted his head to the side before looking back up at Sherlock's expectant expression. "Well, it was certainly interesting."

Sherlock's smile widened to cover his face, and he clapped his hands together placing them against his lips as he strode across the room to stand beside the mantle. He hung on the edge of it swinging his body around to look back at John Watson.

"Indeed, it wasn't boring," John said, "and it's 'John' by the way. You should call me John."

Sherlock angled his hands down and stared straight at him as he tried the name out, "John," he said before beginning a smile that he had to hide behind his steepled hands.

"Well, if that's everything, then I think that I'll be off to bed. It's been ... a bit of a day for me and I'm tired. Goodnight, Sherlock," he said slinging his bag over his shoulder as he walked off toward the stairs.

"Goodnight ... John," Sherlock replied turning his head to follow him as he left.

Sherlock listened to the footsteps as John climbed the stairs.

_One. Two. Three. Four..._

_He is tired. The pause between one step and the next is slowly increasing as he climbs. He'll be asleep before a half-hour is up. Sleep. How could anyone sleep after a day like this? I couldn't possibly sleep for hours. Days even._

_John._

_Brilliant! He's simply Brilliant!_

_That shot! Through two windows. In the dark. Having to adjust for wind conditions. Even if he opened the first window in order to avoid slowing by the glass, that was incredible. I've never lived with a crack shot before. Well... it's not like many people have lived with me...that is stayed living with me for long._

_There's no guarantee that John will stay._

Sherlock felt his stomach drop at the thought.

_No, of course he'll stay. He was smiling. His eyes dilated as we talked at the foot of the stairs, and his temporalis muscle was relaxed, not pulsing like it was at Barts. He enjoyed himself. He'll want to stay._

_That was fun! I've never had a partner before._

_What a day!_

_A serial killer, serial suicides, and Moriarty...my fan? What does that mean?_

Sherlock jumped in place a few times.

_How could anyone sleep on a night like tonight?_

Sherlock turned his head toward the ceiling and listened to the sound of the bedsprings stretching.

_Not quite asleep yet, but he will be. Military man, probably learns to sleep off his adrenaline so as to be ready when the next crisis comes. I'll have to make sure that they keep coming. John Watson is too much fun to let go so easily. He killed a man for me today._

_No, that's melodramatic, what really happened is that he perceived that shooting him was the only way to save a life. It wasn't me. He would have done that for anyone. Wouldn't he? Would he?_

_He could have simply shot the wall and startled us. Made me drop the pill._

_But he didn't know how he was making me take it._

_It was a rational decision to shoot the man who was certainly the instigator of the crime. Good judgment really, and good judgment to get out of the way before anyone noticed that he had done it._

_Really, Doctor John Watson... John, really knows his stuff. I like him._

_Oh._

_That's a strange thought. Liking someone._

_I really should watch that. Emotions are unpredictable._

_There's no guarantee that John Watson will even agree to stay here. I sort of tricked him with the psychosomatic limp thing. Clever ploy if I must say so myself, but he needed a place immediately. He might move off on his own later, when he finds a position that pays well enough. He is a doctor after all. Lots of demand for experienced doctors._

_And having a doctor with me on a case would be so wonderful. He could confirm my deductions. I wouldn't have to wait for the autopsy to know that I'm right. Things could work so much faster._

Sherlock flung himself into his chair and tapped his feet very quickly on the floor.

_How could anyone sleep after a night like this? I could have died. How aggravating not knowing if I took the right pill. I must look for the analysis. But how could I tell which was which? Crime scene photos? If only I hadn't thrown mine. Damn it._

_Then again, maybe both were poison. Then I would have been twitching and dying on the floor of the college and he would certainly have made a name for himself. The man who killed Sherlock Holmes. He would have won. And that Moriarty person. What would he think, or she? I must go over my fan mail. See if one of them could possibly be this ...Moriarty. Hmmmm._

Sherlock stretched out his legs looking up at the ceiling as if he could see through it.

Then he jumped up and walked toward his violin, pulling it out of the case and picking at the strings to tune it before he began to play.

He started with a rapid _staccato_ rhythm before settling down to play Brahms Lulluby. He walked as he played trying to calm his heart which refused to slow down. He felt buzzed, like the first sniff of a new batch of cocaine. He felt a tingle running up through his legs and spine, and he hoped that it never went away.

He passed from one song to the next. Fluid as thought. Changing from low notes to high, playing measures from Beethoven, Paganini, Philip Glass, until finally he just played notes that came out of his mind creating a composition in honor of the day. A composition to express the joy that he felt at this moment.

He would try to remember it later, but he would only be able to remember snatches of themes. Now, it flowed from him as if it was being unfurled from out of his heart. He closed his eyes and played for hours until his soul and mind were at rest, then he put the violin lovingly away before going to sleep for eleven hours straight.


	5. Crutch

John walked into his bedroom at 221B and closed the door. He saw where the policemen had disturbed the furniture, and so he took a moment to walk around the room straightening everything before sitting down on the edge of the bed that Mrs Hudson had made up for him. The bed springs creaked.

John looked toward the door. No crutch. No more pain. He reached his hand up and touched his wounded shoulder. It was a bit stiff. They had told him to exercise it, and he had, although they probably hadn't expected him to do it by jumping from one rooftop to the next as he sped through the streets of London after a murderer.

John chuckled. What had he got himself into? How could he have guessed that moving into a new flat would have meant meeting arch-enemies in abandoned factories, or alternating between eating at fine restaurants and shooting down murder suspects. It was true what he told Sherlock downstairs. This was certainly not boring.

And what was it going to be like living with Sherlock Holmes? He was infuriating. Calling him across town to borrow his phone, not to mention having him text a murderer. He didn't want a murderer calling him! Of course that wasn't a problem anymore. The man was dead.

John hadn't killed a man since Afghanistan. But then again, everything had turned out alright, and it hadn't been a mistake to bring the gun. Actually, John couldn't help but be pleased with himself. That was a phenomenal shot. A shot worthy of Brickson or Moran. He may be a doctor, but he was no slouch when it came to his military skills. He was too proud to be.

John took off his shoes and undid his belt before laying back on top of his sheets to stare at the ceiling. The room was not that much bigger than the room in the temporary housing was. It was almost as empty as well, but it felt so much different. Even the air tasted fresher, like the air before a storm. When he listened, he could hear the walls creak. This was an old house full of mystery. But there was no mystery here greater than the one that walked downstairs, Sherlock Holmes. Who was he? How did someone like him even exist? ' _Why didn't I know that such people existed?'_

The man was a superhero, like Spiderman. How could he just solve crimes the way he did and live _incognito_? In comic books, they were always written up in the newspapers. John would have to look at the paper tomorrow to see what it said about the killer. They'd have to mention him, wouldn't they?

The more that he thought of it, the more certain he was that Sherlock wouldn't be mentioned. Not only was he the last victim, sort of, but he wasn't an official investigator, and the official investigators would be so irritated by his manner and his going off with the killer alone that they would be more likely to talk about how he hindered the case rather than telling how he virtually solved it single-handed.

 _'Stay away from Sherlock Holmes.'_ That's what Donovan had said. Why? He thought that he had an inkling now. Sherlock Holmes was a genius, but he was flighty and unpredictable. He would have taken that pill. Taken that poison pill and died just to see if he was right. Just for the thrill of being that close to death.

John had met thrill seekers before. Saw a lot of them in his job. Throwing themselves in front of a missile to see if they could dodge it. He had a name for them... idiots. Sherlock Holmes was a genius and an idiot. How had he even survived to be the age that he was?

John smiled.

 _That man is sure to get himself killed. If not by the criminals that he chases, then by one of the policemen who will kill him just to get him to shut his mouth._ John chuckled again bouncing a bit on his bed so that the springs creaked.

' _Somebody had better watch his back. I suppose, it'd give me something to do, but My God! It's not going to be easy. He seems to have a talent for finding danger even in this playpen of a world.'_

Just then the sound of violin music drifted up from below. ' _Oh, right. He warned me about the violin.'_ John listened.

At first the music sounded familiar, but then it changed so he wasn't sure if Sherlock was playing actual pieces or if he was making it up, but whatever, his playing was beautiful. John had never been one for music, much less classical music, but even he could tell that Sherlock Holmes was an excellent violin player.

 _'How could anyone possibly be this talented?'_ he wondered.

As the notes wrapped around him, John's heart filled with resolve. _'Sherlock Holmes is amazing, truly amazing. The world is better because there are people like him in it. Are there any other people like him in the world?'_

The music swept over him becoming more and more passionate. It reminded him of jumping from rooftop to rooftop. His eyelids started to close and he felt a single tear on his cheek. He opened his eyes again in wonder reaching up to touch it.

 _'I never thought the sound of a violin could make me cry,'_ he thought.

_Indeed, Sherlock Holmes is amazing. I've got to keep this man alive. That will be a chore, maybe an impossible one. Protect Sherlock Holmes from others and especially from himself. Yes, that's a resolution then. I promise._

_Sherlock Holmes certainly needs saving, but if anyone can do it, I can. I'm a doctor and a soldier. Saving lives is what I do. Sometimes I save a life with a needle, and sometimes I save it with a gun._


	6. A Date

He had a date tonight, with Sarah. Beautiful, intelligent, Sarah. His boss, Sarah. How was that going to work then?

The last time that he had got off with anyone was when he was on leave before his injury. A beautiful red head, part Turkish. Knew a few techniques that the girls here had never seen. That had been a night. Since he had returned, the closest thing he'd had to a relationship with a woman had been with his therapist.

Other than that, the only other person he'd spent any significant time with was his flatmate, Sherlock, the consulting detective, who had let him tag along on cases ever since the first one went so well. They were on a case now.

Sherlock didn't seem to need sleep when he was on a case. He kept going day and night. John had thought that he'd give anything for a good night sleep, then he had fallen asleep at work. Not good. But instead of firing him, Sarah had accepted his offer of a date, which meant that she really did like him, and if SHE didn't think that it was a problem being with him even though he worked with her, then he was certainly not going to put any ideas into her head.

John looked through his things but no shirt was as nice as the one that he was wearing. He hadn't bought many clothes since he had returned. Had very few smart clothes in fact, and only one suit. A brown one that he had worn to Harry's graduation, God knows how many years ago. No, he wasn't wearing that.

Sarah was nice. She had a nice smile, and her legs weren't bad if she'd stop wearing those dowdy dresses. But Sarah wasn't the type for one night stands. Sarah was a girl for the long haul. Was he ready for that? Was he ready for a serious girlfriend again. He'd better figure it out before it went too far. If this went badly, he could lose his job and he'd have to start looking again. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

John took off his shirt putting it on a hanger, and then changed his undershirt. He stopped at the door and picked up his robe wrapping it around him to spare his flatmate's sensibilities.

John had never seen his flatmate in an undershirt or in a real state of undress. He wore his bathrobe over his shirt as if being seen without a jacket was somehow indecent. On the base, they had gone to the showers and back stark naked and no one had thought twice about it, but then again, one never knew when Mrs Hudson would be around.

John walked down the stairs. Sherlock was pacing in the living room. His eyes followed John as he went to the bathroom. John hung his shirt on the open door and pulled out his shaving kit.

He looked at his reflection, the hint of stubble around his mouth and chin. His hair just a bit longer than he liked it, then he splashed cold water on his face.

A relationship. He hadn't had one of those since he had joined the army. Cathy Hicks. He was going to marry Cathy Hicks. She had the most erotic thighs that he had ever seen, and she was the best kisser. She had taught him a thing or two, or three. He smiled pulling out the shaving cream and lathering some on his chin.

But things had changed after he had gone to boot camp. She was taking psychology classes. He wrote to her of how he missed her, and of how tired he was, and she wrote back about how they were using brainwashing techniques on him and that he should resist their authority. He had brushed it off at first, but it only got worse.

Their few visits together, he preferred to keep short. A brief visit. A shag, and then goodbye. It was best if they didn't talk. She would go on about how he was being conditioned to kill, and said that she was afraid that he would be turned into a monster.

It had come to the point where he would store her letters unread in his bag. He'd rather think of the way that she had been, than the activist that she had become. It had ended just before he had been assigned to Afghanistan. He came home and she had taken him to attend an anti-war rally.

"The government is using you, John," she had said, "they will make you kill innocent women and children for their war of aggression. You've got to resist. You've got to resign."

"I can't possibly do that Cathy, I've already signed the papers. Like it or not, I go where they send me."

"But we can fight it."

"I don't want to fight it."

"You are only thinking that way because they've brainwashed you to believe it."

"If you think that I joined the army just because someone brainwashed me, then maybe you don't really know me."

"You're right, John," she had said, "I don't know you. You aren't the man that I got engaged to. Are you going to leave the army? If I ask you to, for me?"

He had thought about it, about how much she meant to him. The life that they had planned with each other, but he also thought of the men that he had trained with. Men who expected him to watch their back. To keep them alive in a dangerous situation. There is a bond among men in a combat situation. A bond that is sacred. It's hardly ever spoken of, but it is very real. He had promised his mates that he would live and die by their side. He had promised, and if she couldn't understand how important that was to him, then she was not the girl for him.

She had given back the ring, and he had reported for duty early, spending his last night of leave in an empty barracks wondering if he would die before he ever found love again. It had been a miserable night.

"John, are you alright?"

John turned to see Sherlock in the hallway watching him. He didn't know how long he had been standing there. "What?" he asked.

"What are you thinking of?" Sherlock asked.

"Oh nothing," John said pulling the razor across his chin.

"It didn't look like 'nothing'," Sherlock said.

John frowned flinging the shaving cream down into the sink. "If you must know, I was thinking of an old girlfriend."

"Didn't go well?" he asked walking to the door to look closer at John's face.

John glanced at him and finished shaving, rinsing out the razor in the sink before bending down to wash his face and hands. He dried them on a towel and then turned to Sherlock. "No, it didn't go well."

"Does that mean that you don't want to go on this date?" Sherlock asked and John looked up at him wondering if he had a hidden agenda, and suspecting that he did.

"No, it just means that I have to play this one carefully. That's why I don't want any interference from you."

"Is that what you do on a date...play?"

"Well..." John didn't know how to answer this. Surely Sherlock had been on a date before? Why was he bothering John?

Sherlock hung on the door frame watching as John put on his shirt and he said, "Really John. Dinner and a movie is very pedestrian. You want to take Sarah somewhere that she will remember. Reconsider the circus. It's for one night only. I'll make a reservation for you if you'd like."

John looked up at Sherlock as he buttoned his shirt. It was, in a way, a sort of peace offering. An acknowledgement that Sherlock would give him the night off even in the middle of the case. Who was he to refuse an olive branch. "Well, yes Sherlock, that would be nice if you could make a reservation for us. Thank You."

Sherlock grinned and pulled out his phone dialing the number. Had he memorized it? John chuckled before turning back to the mirror to tackle his hair.


	7. Colleague

Sherlock pulls out his phone and calls the circus. "Yes, I'd like to reserve two tickets for tonight's performance. The name ... Holmes."

_This fits the profile. In town for one night. Not easy to get exit visas from China especially on short notice. John can report back to me. Tell me who in the circus can climb like a spider. His date is perfect camouflage. He'll get his day off, and still be working for me._

_How could he possibly schedule a date during a case? We have all of these books to go through._

_A date? Why does he need to date anyway? Aren't we perfectly happy here as it is? What could he possibly need from her anyway?_

_Is he planning on getting married? Dull._

_And if he leaves, where else am I going to find such an agreeable flatmate? Does he have no consideration at all?_

Sherlock turns as John walks into the room. He is well groomed and neat. Truth be told, he looks very nice. "Well Sherlock, I'm off. Do you have the address of that circus?"

Sherlock reaches into his coat pocket passing the crinkled red flyer to John. He had already memorized the address.

"Well, thanks, Sherlock. Don't wait up." John pulls the coat around him and marches down the stairs. Sherlock listens as the outer door closes and he sits in his chair steepling his hands.

_Something stolen._

_A Chinese acrobat._

_Two men dead and one woman. Her brother. Size eight feet. Hands around my neck._

_And Sebastian telling me to focus and only solve the boring case of how they got into the Director's office. Through the window. It was so obvious as to be hardly worth mentioning. Five figures. Ha! Sebastian always had more money than brains._

_He didn't have to tell John that they hated me. Always looking down their noses at me. Laughing because they had their ...gang, and I was alone. Laughing when I called John a friend._

_**'Colleague',** _ _John had said, not '_ _**friend** _ _'. I still don't understand these distinctions. I would think that if someone kills someone for you that they would graduate to becoming a friend, but then ...I guess not._

_But 'colleague'. It means a partner in an office. Someone that one works with. Related to_ _**legare** _ _'to choose'. Someone that one chooses to work with. I suppose that isn't inaccurate. I'd certainly choose to work with John over Anderson or Donovan, or even Lestrade._

_But he doesn't know that I suspect the circus members of being the Black Lotus. He doesn't know what to look for. He'll probably spend all of his time looking at his date's cleavage and he'll miss all the important clues. I should tell him._

Sherlock pulls out his phone. Then stops.

_And what will he say?_ _**'Go to hell, Sherlock, I'm on a date!'** _

_But... I do need to get out of this flat, and he is my colleague._

Sherlock dials. "Hello, yes? You have a reservation for a Mr. Holmes...two tickets, that's right. Can you change it to three?"


	8. Watching my back

The grey light streamed through the windows of the abandoned office. The rain-streaked windows illuminating strands of cable, overturned office chairs and frames that must have been the base of a desk or a divider.

John and Sherlock turned toward the door where they had entered and saw a large man enter the room behind them. He was so large that he ducked as he passed through the door.

Sherlock tilted his head toward John. "Did you bring your gun?"

"No," John said, "I thought that you said that no one would be here."

"I suppose that I was wrong," Sherlock said as he started sidling toward the other door to find another man coming toward them carrying a metal pipe.

They looked back at the first man who pulled out a knife.

"One on one. At least the odds are good," John said.

"Are you forgetting the weapons?" Sherlock asked.

"A weapon is only as good as the man who wields it," John said sliding up closer to Sherlock. "I have your back."

Sherlock and John stood in the middle of the office as the men approached cautiously.

"When was your last martial arts match Sherlock?" John asked.

"Official or freestyle?"

But they didn't get a chance to finish because the man with the pipe took a mighty swing that he angled down at Sherlock's head. Sherlock raised his arm to block it.

_Block the arm not the weapon, never touch the weapon._

He wrapped his arm around the other man's arm and kneed him in the groin.

The large man approached John and smiled at their difference in height. John bent his knees deep making him seem even shorter as he squatted in a boxer's stance. The man's smile grew wider and he put the knife on his belt as he raised his fists to box with John.

Sherlock hit the base of the man's neck with his elbow and raised his arm higher until a loud crack revealed that he had dislocated the man's shoulder. He chopped the man on the neck in a sharp movement, and the man fell to the ground hard, bashing his head against a bit of square chrome covered pipe and knocking himself out.

Sherlock turned and looked at John who was boxing with Goliath. He was just wondering how to help when the man hit John on the chin spinning him completely around. He turned in a full circle passing under the man's arm and grabbing him at the waist. The man, not a true boxer, had unbalanced himself so that it was relatively easy for John to take him down. The man fought to get up only to find John on top of him, his own knife at his throat.

"Now I wouldn't try that if I were you," John said, "It's been a while since I've killed a man in hand to hand combat, but I wouldn't mind refreshing my skills a bit. Sherlock, do you think you might be able to text Lestrade?"

"Already done it?"

"When?"

"In my pocket when we first saw them."

"You must have incredibly fast fingers."

"So, I've been told."

"If it was anyone but you Sherlock, I'd think you were making a sexual innuendo."

"Pardon?" Sherlock said.

"Never mind," John said as the sound of sirens filtered in from outside the building. John grinned down at the man. "That's what you get for underestimating one of Her Majesty's finest."

A group of officers rushed in, weapons out as they swept the area. Sherlock stood where he was. The officers gathered around and stared at John who looked quite the little assassin with his knife at the large man's throat. Donovan came over and snapped a picture with her phone.

"Are any one of you going to help me or are you just going to keep staring?" John said.

The men suddenly leapt into action; picking the man up by his arms and putting on cuffs. Sherlock grinned widely.

"I'm taking these two straight to the station, but I need your statements," Lestrade said glancing down at the man that Sherlock had incapacitated. The officers pulled him to his feet and he staggered with them across the room. "What was this all about anyway?"

Sherlock strode over to the wall kicking a bag which concealed a large plastic phone.

"You'll find that this is where Rhodes called from," Sherlock said, "If we're lucky, it will still have his fingerprints on it."

Lestrade motioned Donovan over. "Dust this will you, and bag it."

As Donovan passed John she smiled. "Good job, you," she said before bending down to do her work.

"I suppose that with this last piece of evidence, not to mention the statements from those two men who will find that a triple homicide is not the sort of bullying that they signed up for, we have enough evidence to send Rhodes to prison for a long time. Don't you think inspector?"

"Well, yeah" Lestrade said.

"Then you don't really need us do you? Come on John, I'm famished. I feel like I could eat a lion," Sherlock said.

John chuckled and turned to follow him out as Donovan mimed clapping at his back.

"Like a bloody whirlwind," Lestrade said as he bent down to examine the evidence. Sherlock clattered down the stairs with John on his heels.

They strode down the sidewalk, the sound of sirens shrinking behind them as they walked through the light rain.

"Are you really not going in to testify?" John asked.

"We'll go tomorrow, John," Sherlock said. "Most police work is time consuming and deadly dull. Never go when they ask you to. You go when they are ready for your evidence. Too much time wasted otherwise."

Sherlock and John stood side by side on a busy street. Sherlock reached out his hand and hailed a cab. He talked for a minute with the driver and then they climbed inside.

"So John, not exactly the Queensberry Rules that move you did."

"Well, there's only one rule in the army," John said, "and that is to win."

Sherlock glanced at John and then wiped the inside of the glass with his gloved hand as he looked out at the passing buildings.

"If it's all the same to you, Sherlock," John said, "I'd prefer to go home and get take out. I think that I might have pulled something in that fight."

"Certainly," Sherlock said tapping on the window to convey the new address to the driver.

John rubbed his hands together, "I can't wait to write about this on my blog."

"Oh you can't mention this case, John," Sherlock said to John's affronted face. "Rhodes is too powerful. Any mention before the trial will be seen as slander."

"It's not slander if it's true," John said.

"Even so...besides I don't think your reputation will suffer any just because you can't post it in a blog. I'm sure that before the night is out Donovan's picture of you will be hanging up by the water cooler in Scotland Yard."

John smiled saying, "I suppose that you're right." The two laughed.

Immediately after dinner, John went to bed. Sherlock paced and thought.

_John was amazing again today._

_He let himself get punched in order to distract the man so that he could get up close and take his knife._

_His cheek must really hurt now._

_He needs an icepack to prevent it from swelling._

_An icepack or a steak._

_I don't have any steaks._

_I do have ears, and they're in the freezer._

Sherlock ran up the stairs. A plastic bag of frozen ears in his hand. He knocked on the door and then opened it to see John sitting on his bed, medical kit open, applying something to his face while looking into a shaving mirror.

John glanced up at Sherlock with a puzzled expression on his face.


	9. My boys

I've had more than my share of excitement in my life. You wouldn't know to look at me. I look like just another old landlady living a quiet life renting out flats in London, but life is not quiet when your tenant is Sherlock Holmes.

For example, the other day I came home from shopping to find Sherlock's young man rushing past me into the cold without his coat. That was no surprise. Sherlock has habits that would worry a saint. In fact, Dr. John Watson is a saint in my book for staying his flatmate for so long. Sherlock Holmes is not an easy man to live with.

"Ooh hoo! Have you two had a little domestic?" I said as I entered.

Sherlock was on the couch wrapped up in his dressing gown, sulking. He jumped up and walked over the table, not around it but over it, to peer out of the window at John's back.

"A bit nippy out there. He should have wrapped himself up a bit more," I said pushing aside the dishes as I pulled out some sugar for the boys. Sherlock couldn't stock a pantry to save his life.

"Look at that Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock said glancing out of the window, "quiet, calm, peaceful." Then he sighed, "isn't it hateful?"

"Oh I'm sure something will turn up Sherlock," I said, " a nice murder, that will cheer you up." I turned and walked through the flat toward the stairs.

"Mmm, can't come too soon," he said impatient as a child.

When I turned back to look at him, I noticed the spray painted smiley face on the wall riddled with bullet holes.

"Hey, what have you done to my bloody wall!" I yelled, but that troublesome child only smirked at me. "I'm putting this on your rent, young man, " I said before storming down the stairs to my own apartment.

I was halfway down when an explosion rocked the building. I was used to explosions with Sherlock living upstairs, but this one seemed to be from outside. I ran back upstairs to find Sherlock face down on the floor, my beautiful windows blown to bits. These sort of things happen when you have Sherlock Holmes as a tenant.

I first met Sherlock in an alley when a man who I thought was simply trying to steal my purse pulled a knife on me. Sherlock knocked him to the ground and disarmed him whipping out his phone to call that nice Detective Inspector Lestrade. When they turned the man over, I realized that I had seen him before. He was an associate of my late husband sent to kill me.

But let me start at the beginning so that you can better understand our relationship. I had been a dancer. My husband was a very charismatic man. He was clever. He was going places. I was swept away by him. It was only after we were married that I learned his true nature. He was a man with a heart of ice, a criminal, a murder.

I would have liked to say that I saw my first dead bodies only after Sherlock had moved in, but that wasn't true. I couldn't leave him. I had a daughter to think of. For twenty-nine years I was his slave. Nothing I did was outside his review. He had a nasty temper, and it wasn't the first time that he had threatened me with death, not by a long shot.

And then one day, he went to America to pull a caper and got caught murdering a woman and her sister in broad daylight. Florida, USA has a death penalty, and he was put on death row. He called me, emailed me, wrote to me asking me to use the money stashed in the basement to hire the best lawyers in England to get him out.

Instead, I used the money to buy this house, 221 Baker street. My husband was convicted. I had finally escaped from him, but somehow, even from prison he was able to send someone after me. Sherlock found evidence to prove that the man was trying to kill me, changing his sentence from armed assault to attempted murder. Sherlock is such a good boy.

Some years ago, I heard that my husband was up for parole. Some organization, out to prove that many of those on death row were there because of circumstantial evidence, was trying to get him freed. He sent me a note saying that he would see me soon, so I called Sherlock. He flew to the States with evidence of his crimes in the UK that made his case evaporate into nothing. On the day he died I threw a party to celebrate. Not very nice, but if you had met him, you would too.

It was a gas explosion across the street that had broken my windows. It also damaged my bins so that I had to buy new ones. Bins are much more expensive than you might think for something that you simply throw rubbish into.

The thermostat was also going crazy since there was nothing to hold the warmth in. I shut off the heat in the flat upstairs. I was able to warm the bedrooms a bit, and the bathroom had a gas heater in the wall that I lit, but they would have to deal with the cold until I could get a repairman in.

The next morning, Sherlock's brother, Mycroft Holmes came to the flat. Mycroft is a nice young man though a bit standoffish. He shows a great deal of concern for his little brother, and to tell the truth, Sherlock needs it. My goodness, despite the fact that he's got more brain cells than a classroom full of Cambridge professors, sometimes he doesn't have the common sense of a pet beagle. That was why I was so glad when Doctor Watson moved in with him. Dr. Watson is an incredibly steady man with excellent manners. How Sherlock found him I don't know, but they get along swimmingly.

If you want to know my secret wish, it's that those two get together and I get a pair of married ones myself. We can't let Mrs Turner have all of the fun. Sherlock is like the son I never had. It's amazing how similar he is to my late husband, in some ways that is, but he doesn't have an evil bone in his body. He is rude, that's true, but deep down, he's just the sweetest little boy.

I let him stay in my house, not only because I care for him, but also because I know that no other landlord in London could stand his habits. All his goings on. Gun shots into the wall, explosions, dead bodies, violin noise in the middle of the night, fighting, sometimes I wonder how I stand it.

The door opened and John Watson entered running up the stairs. He must have just found out about the explosion. It was on the telly. Soon afterward Mycroft left, and I went off to visit my insurance agent. I would need money to make repairs. I would have raised Sherlock's rent again, but this time at least, it wasn't his fault.

I walked out of my room to see Sherlock rushing down the stairs with Dr. Watson quick on his heels. "Is it another case?" I asked them as they rushed by. Sherlock turned toward me and grabbed my arms kissing me on the cheek.

"Yes, finally!" he said, "That gas explosion was no accident!"

"It wasn't!" I cried. "Then who's going to pay for my bins?" but they were gone, dashing about like they always do.

For the next few days, council workers cleared the street. I tried to find an affordable glazier, while Sherlock and John stormed in and out of the house like a hurricane, barely stopping to eat or sleep. To tell the truth, I don't think that Sherlock slept all week.

While tidying up some dishes in their flat, ' _I'm not their housekeeper, but I do keep an eye out for them_ ', Sherlock looked up from his microscope and pounded the table yelling, "Clostridium botulinum!" I rushed out of the room knowing to keep out of their way when they are in the thick of things.

For the next few days, Sherlock was happy as a clam. Running in and out. Solving crimes with John Watson at his heels. Then it seemed that it was all over. They said that they were staying in for a telly night. I had my evening soother and went to bed only to be woken in the middle of the night by a knocking on my door.

John and Sherlock were breathing rapidly as if they had run most of the way home.

"Lock the door, Mrs Hudson," Sherlock said, "there's someone after us and they are not above kidnapping to make their point. Let no one in unless you know them personally, do you understand?"

"I understand deary, you just leave it to Mrs Hudson. Go and get yourself some rest, you both look shattered."

The boys walked up the stairs slowly. John reached out and touched the middle of Sherlock's back, but he didn't turn or say a word. I heard him start to pace and I went over to lock the door.

You may think that a little old lady doesn't know how to deal with trouble, but I had been planning for siege since I had first moved into this house. I locked the front door and pulled down the security bar.

I chained and alarmed the back door, and sealed all of the windows that would seal. Sherlock and John would have to deal with their blown out windows themselves. After I was finished, I put on the kettle to make a pot of strong tea. I thought of asking the two of them down to fill me in on the danger, but it was quiet upstairs. They must have taken my advice and gone to bed.

I reached up onto the top shelf and pulled down my old flour tin. I removed the knitted cozy and pulled out the Walther PPK pistol that I keep there for emergencies. I checked the rounds and wiped it with an old tea towel. The boys could sleep all they wanted. I would be up all night ready and able to guard their dreams.


	10. Burnout

The second time that Moriarty left the pool, John and Sherlock wasted no time getting out of the building. They ran down the street in search of a cab, but they didn't take the first one, or the second one that they saw. When they did find one that Sherlock approved of, a Pakistani driver with two daughters who had just got his license this year, they piled into the back.

"Shouldn't we tell Lestrade about this?" John asked.

Sherlock frowned and then pulled out his phone and sent a text.

"What did you say?"

"I told him that he would find a vest of explosives at the pool, and that we would talk to him about it tomorrow. Moriarty and his men will be long gone by now."

"Shouldn't we at least try to catch them?"

"Quiet John, I'm thinking," Sherlock said and he turned away to face the window.

They exited the cab three blocks from home. Then they ran the rest of the way back, rushing up the stairs and knocking on Mrs Hudson's door to inform her of the danger before going up to their flat.

The flat was freezing. John thought of starting a fire, but fatigue overtook him and he sank into his chair. Sherlock on the other hand was jumpy. He put his hands together and started to pace back and forth.

John's eyes started to close, then he opened them abruptly. "Sherlock," he said, "we should talk about this. What do you think Moriarty is planning to do next? He's obviously obsessed with you. It's not going to end here."

"I know," Sherlock said, "but there are other things more important than Moriarty to think about."

"What things?" John asked.

Sherlock turned to face John. "John, I..." he began then he closed his mouth and looked away. "I'm going to bed," he said and walked into his room closing the door between them.

John stared at Sherlock's door, contemplated making tea for a minute, and then pushed himself up out of the chair and climbed the steps to his room. He took off his coat and fell back on his bed, too tired to even take off his shoes.

This day had certainly not turned out as he expected. He had hoped that by this time of night he would be warmly snuggled up in Sarah's bed. He certainly didn't expect to be kidnapped ... again.

Earlier that evening, when John awoke to find himself covered with explosives, he cursed himself for not guessing that he would be the next logical target. He was propped up in the back of a darkened van with a gun trained on his chest. He thought of several scenarios for disarming the man, unfortunately they all ended in a large explosion, so he sat back, closed his eyes, and waited for his time to come.

He'd seen such things before. A young man, boy really, covered with explosives trying to get onto the base with a group of Afghans who were bringing supplies. The guard didn't recognize him, and so he told him to stop. He grabbed his cloak, but the boy kept walking. The cloak tore off revealing that he was covered head to toe in explosives. Everyone stopped and time seemed to slow. Williams, one of the base snipers, picked up his gun and aimed for the boy's throat, but the boy was too quick. He ran, throwing himself at the guard station as he pulled the trigger. The explosion blew down the gate and the guard station killing one soldier and injuring five civilians. All that John could think about was the boy's face, his determination, his resolve to sacrifice his life. That expression had looked so wrong on a boy so young.

The van stopped at a public pool of all places. Someone broke the locks and rushed in. _What were they going to do here, swim?_ Then the man placed an earpiece in his ear. John could see the targeting laser on his chest, and he knew that it wasn't worth trying to fight then. The man told him that he had better follow all of the instructions to the letter if he wanted to get out of here alive, but John already knew that that wouldn't happen. The fact that they had given him an earpiece rather than a pager meant that he would hear Moriarty's voice. That meant that they had no intention of letting him get out alive. John's hand steadied and his face went hard. He knew that if it was his time, he would not die quietly, nor would he die alone.

They made John sit in a changing booth. He closed his eyes and marshaled his strength wondering what puzzle Sherlock would have to solve and how much time they would give him. Then he smiled. No, life with Sherlock certainly was NOT boring. Heads in the refrigerator. Late night searches for assassins. A self appointed ' _fan_ ' blowing people up for entertainment. If anything, life with Sherlock was perhaps a bit too exciting. Maybe he should have listened to Sally and taken up fishing instead.

When John heard the voice for the first time. It was soft and strangely familiar. "Get up," it said, "he's coming. You are going to walk out there and repeat every word that I say. Deviate from it, even a little and you go boom. Nod if you understand me." John nodded. Then the door opened, and John could hear Sherlock.

"Go out now, Johnny boy. Let him take a look at you."

John walked out beside the pool. Sherlock was holding up the memory stick. The one that he said that he had given to Mycroft. _Liar_. He turned and saw John. John could almost see the thoughts passing across his face. _Why is John here? Oh God is John Moriarty?_ "John, what the hell...?" Sherlock said.

John repeated the words. "Bet you never saw this coming."

Sherlock turned slowly, walking toward John who opened his coat to reveal the explosives. _Why was he coming closer? He should stay back. He'd have a better chance of surviving the explosion if he kept his distance._ John nodded to Sherlock to tell him that he was ready for anything, but Sherlock didn't seem to understand his meaning.

The look on Sherlock's face was both angry and petulant. Then Moriarty appeared. It was Molly's boyfriend, Jim from IT. The only difference was that he was better dressed. He still sounded as wimpy as ever. Sherlock held the gun on Moriarty, and John stood perfectly still. The red dot on his chest demonstrating that a marksman had drawn a bead firmly on his heart.

John ran the odds in his head. If Sherlock shot Moriarty then they would shoot the trigger and John and Sherlock would both go up. That wouldn't work. John knew that he would die, but Sherlock ... Sherlock had to survive. He had to get away. When Moriarty tossed away the memory stick, John took his chance. He threw his arms around Moriarty yelling..."Sherlock run!" but Sherlock didn't run. He just stood there with his gun trained on Moriarty's head.

"If your sniper pulls that trigger, Mr. Moriarty, then we both go up," John said as he held Moriarty firmly by the neck and arm.

Moriarty was surprised, but then he said, "You've rather shown your hand there, Dr. Watson," and the gun shifted to Sherlock's head.

John stepped back and thought. _If we ever get out of this we are going to have to come up with some kind of codewords. Why didn't he leave when he had the chance?_

When Moriarty left the first time, Sherlock pulled the explosive vest off of John and shoved it away. John fell to the floor in relief listening as Sherlock tried to express gratitude, but all that John was thinking as Sherlock scratched the back of his head with the gun was, " _I'm going to have to give that man a little training in gun safety."_

Then Moriarty returned the second time and John knew that they were done for until that phone call had saved them. _The Beegees. Honestly?_

"What happened there?" John said after they had left.

Sherlock replied, "Someone changed his mind."

John sat up in bed. The stress exhaustion passing for a bit. He finally had enough energy to take off his shoes and his belt and climb under the covers. He thought for a moment of Sherlock. He had never seen him so agitated before. John wanted to talk to him, to ask him if he was okay, but he knew that it would have to wait until tomorrow, because nothing short of another explosion was getting him out of this bed before morning.

John's body was exhausted. He lay in the bed like one of the dead, but his mind kept racing. _Sherlock Holmes is such an idiot, going to meet Moriarty without backup, waiting until I was gone to do it. I suppose, in his way, he was trying to protect me. Wanker! Doesn't he understand that I'm here to help him? Doesn't he understand that that's why I stay with him? Because he needs someone like me. Sherlock needs me to survive in this crazy world._ _And I need him._


	11. Friend

Sherlock closed the door to his bedroom and listened as John climbed up the stairs. It was true that Moriarty was out there, but he had made his introduction. Sherlock didn't expect to hear from him again for some days at least. There was something else that worried him more than James Moriarty. A problem that he had not noticed until today. The problem was John Watson. What was going on between himself and John Watson?

_When John came around that corner where Moriarty was supposed to appear, I couldn't believe it. Not because it wasn't logical. It was logical. It was genius. John ... Moriarty, living with me, watching my every move, he would have defeated me completely._

_But I couldn't believe that John was Moriarty, because to do so would hurt too much. To imagine John Watson as my enemy... John, my companion, my most loyal helper, to imagine that all of our time together was a lie. It's too painful to contemplate._

_When did I become so dependent on John Watson, so trusting of him? John is part of the fabric of my world. He's almost a part of myself. I hadn't noticed how much I have come to rely on him. How much I expect him to be there, always. Since he's been with me, I've become a better detective. I solve cases faster. I'm even healthier. He's been good for me._

_But he is his own person. I can't expect that he will stay with me forever. He wants ...other things: To get married, have children. He can't do that here with me. One day, he'll leave, and when he does it will damage me, lessen me, cripple me._

_Who knew that when Dr. John Watson hobbled into my life on that crutch that he would end up becoming a crutch for me._

_But then again, it's all in the mind isn't it. I suppose, like him, the only way to regain myself is to throw the crutch away. To learn to walk on my own, without him. Why does it hurt so much to think of that? I could delete John Watson. Ask him to leave. Then I wouldn't have this weakness anymore._

_Tomorrow, I will ask John to leave. He'll make that worried face of his, and ask me why, but then he'll go. And when he leaves he will take away with him mornings of tea and toast, chases that leave us laughing out loud at the absurdity of it all, those smart remarks he makes that never fail to make me smile, in fact, he'll take all of the best parts of me with him._

_That must be what Moriarty meant._

**"I'll burn the heart out of you."**

**"I have been reliably informed that I don't have one."**

**"But we both know that's not quite true."**

Sherlock clasped his knees to his chest pulling himself into a ball as memories flew through his head like arrows. Memories of his relations with other people: Frowns and insults, anger and resentment, even hate.

_I should have known better. When has getting close to someone given me anything other than pain._

_Who needs friends._ _Emotions ... they cloud the intellect._ _I don't need them. I don't need anyone. I work better alone._

Sherlock began to rock backwards and forwards as the world around him appeared to grow darker and darker. The sound of static filled his ears until it was all that he could hear. Darkness and static crowded out all of his thoughts until he felt that he might scream. For the first time in months he craved cocaine. Something, anything to clear out his head.

Sherlock rose from his bed and went into the living room. He walked over to the fireplace and pried loose the brick that covered a hidden chamber. He reached his long fingers into the crack and pulled out the wooden box that he kept there. It had been over a year since he had last taken cocaine but he always kept one shot for emergencies like today. He sat on his heels before the cold fireplace and opened the box ready to take out the glass syringe and visit swift oblivion, but the syringe was not there. Only a rolled up piece of paper.

He opened it and read.

_**Sherlock,** _

_**I don't know if you are bored or simply upset, but this isn't the answer.** _

_**Please remember that you aren't the only one that you hurt when you hurt yourself.** _

_**John** _

Sherlock read the note again, and he started to giggle. Then he started to laugh and fell backwards onto the rug. He jumped up and took a pen from his desk signing a note at the bottom before replacing it in the box and in the hidden chamber. He had added the words.

_**Thank you, John** _

Sherlock walked back into his room and sat on his bed.

_Deleting John Watson might remove this weakness, but it would feel like burning out my heart. That's what Moriarty wants. To burn away all of the love and feeling out of me until I am cold and broken like him. Then Moriarty will have won._

_But if I stay with John, Moriarty won't ever forget him. He'll always be after him. Aiming for him, in order to get to me._

Sherlock bit the side of his hand. and curled up on his bed.

 _I said before that I work better with John. Then I said that I work better alone. To believe both is a logical inconsistency. Which is true?_ Sherlock thought back over the days that they worked together, as well as the time before John and realized the truth.

_I work better with John. Maybe, that advantage will be enough to thwart Moriarty. Maybe we'll be a little faster, a little smarter together than I would be alone. Moriarty will still be after John. I'll have to watch him constantly, but is that such a bad thing?_

_If I make John even more a part of myself. If we learn to be faster, better, more coordinated, we can beat Moriarty. I know it. It has to be true, because the alternative is not worth thinking about._

_When John held Moriarty at the pool and told me to run. I couldn't move. I knew that it was the logical thing to do, but I could not leave him. In truth, I would rather be blown to nothing than to live a day in a world without John Watson._

"Ah!" Sherlock cried as realization struck him. He unfolded himself and looked up. The dawn light was spilling through the window, and he could hear footsteps on the stairs. John had gone to the bathroom.

Sherlock stood.

When he looked at himself in the mirror, he saw a different man than the man he had been before. He wiped his face with a handkerchief and adjusted his collar and cuffs, then he walked out of his room and into the kitchen.

John had turned on the kettle. He looked over his shoulder and smiled as he saw Sherlock. "Good Morning, Sherlock," he said, "Feeling better?"

"Hmm," Sherlock said watching as John took down a jar of jam. He pulled some bread out of the toaster and walked over to the table spreading the jam on the bread with a knife. "Toast?" he asked motioning the plate toward Sherlock. Sherlock took a slice.

_If I have to choose between this life and a life alone, it isn't really that hard of a choice. Even if he leaves me in the future, it won't cancel out the smiles or the joys of our life together now._

John poured Sherlock a mug of tea and held it out. Their hands were warmed by the passage of the cup, but even without it they were warmed by the bonds of friendship. A friendship that couldn't be frightened away by threats or explosions. A friendship that would last forever. Sherlock took the cup and smiled, blowing across the surface to cool it as he stood close beside John, his first and best friend.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Crutch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3600795) by [AlessNox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlessNox/pseuds/AlessNox)




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